Driving Through the Night
by imprecisesubject
Summary: How Lizzie comes to discover Darcy's involvement in the Lydia/George scandal and how she deals with that in her classic Lizzie way. Set in the Bennet's family home, a car, and Pemberley Digital.
1. Chapter 1 - Distractions

Lizzie sat at the kitchen counter, sipping on a red crème soda, flicking through a folder that Dr Gardiner had given her, full of options for finishing her independent study. No matter how many times she thought she'd found a good company to shadow, she would always look at who they were affiliated with and nearly all of them had connections with Pemberley Digital. That's just the kind of company Pemberley was though. They knew everyone; they had an egg in every single basket.

She wished they didn't. For the last few weeks she'd managed to avoid thinking about William Darcy at all, but with Charlotte's return, she'd been made to revisit the Pemberley videos and had been forced to see that there might have been something there. Lizzie didn't want to think about that. She wished that they still hated each other and that he'd never given her a reason to like him at all. She wished she could just go back to dressing up and making fun of him without feeling guilty or wrong.

Lizzie didn't want to see any of those videos again. She didn't want to get her hopes up by seeing the chemistry between them again. She'd left in a rush and Darcy didn't want to have anything to do with a family that had ties with Wickham. Lizzie definitely didn't blame him for that.  
She groaned and shut the folder, deciding, for about the 5th time, that she would deal with it tomorrow.

She climbed the stairs back to her room where she planned to spend the rest of this cold, rainy night reading Harry Potter. She wasn't at all against returning to the series that she loved so much as a child and if she was going to procrastinate from making a decision then returning to Hogwarts was definitely the best way to do it. As she jumped up the last two steps, she heard the front door creak open.

"Lydia? Are you home?" She called down.

"Yeah! It is like, crazy weather out there sis, I hope you're not planning to go out."

"Nope, was just going to go read."

"Of course you were, you're a giant nerd, I don't know why I expected anything else."

"Shut up. There's a bottle of soda in the fridge for you if you want it. And I'll be in my room if you need me."

"Cool beans sis, thanks!" A few seconds later Lizzie heard a squeal of delight and the words "Ooooh red crème!"

Smiling, Lizzie finished the walk to her room and settled down to read.

Three hours later, the sounds of Lydia's sugar high had subsided and Lizzie was halfway through Chamber of Secrets. She put the book down and sighed. She was making good progress through the books, but she was having a hard time giving them her full attention. Something was just niggling at the back of her mind and she couldn't get rid of it. She didn't even know what it was really.

"Hey…can I come in?" Came Lydia's voice from outside her door.

"Sure!" Lizzie replied, pulling herself upright in bed. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just.. like, you know when you get heaps of sugar in you and you go crazy and then you have like, the come down?"

"Having seen it in you many a time, yes, I know it well." Lizzie laughed.

"Yeah, well my come down has just gotten me thinking and so I thought I'd talk to you about it." Lydia flopped onto the bed and pulled some of the pillows towards herself.

"Yeah, that's cool, what type of stuff? George stuff or school or friends or what?"

"Not sure… kind of all of it?" Lydia took a deep breath. "So I've been talking to Gigi a bit and she told me how she kind of fell off the grid when he screwed her over and then she just threw herself into studies and working and she's managed to get over it?"

Lizzie's eyes widened slightly in confusion. "Hold up for a second there. You're in touch with Gigi? How?! I mean, I have her cell, but how are you talking to her?"

"We just DM on Twitter, obvs?!"

"Oh my goodness. Of course! Gigi has a Twitter, how the hell did I forget that?"

"I don't know? She's had it for ages, but I only started following her when I found out about everything with George."

"Sorry, right, George, what were you starting to say?" Lizzie tried to put this new information about the youngest Darcy sibling out of her head.

"Well I was just going to say like, I know how you were involved in heaps of clubs and stuff at school and college and I was wondering if you had any recommendations because I need to throw myself right in and not think about this whole thing anymore. Seriously, it's effecting my day-today living and it shouldn't be!" Lydia laughed and rolled her eyes, "You know, I can't even eat peaches anymore. This whole thing is causing me to _eat _differently. There's something seriously wrong with that."

Lizzie shook her head. "Lydia, it was a big deal and no one expects you to get over it like a bad head cold."

"Well, yeah, I totes get that, but how am I ever going to move on if I'm totally mopey and drama-filled all the time. I just need to go back to being normal and having proper fun." She shifted her position on the bed, her frustration with still having to deal with the scandal is obvious these days, in how she fidgets more and is uncertain. She's no longer the Lydia that Lizzie knows, full of life and diving head first into anything and everything. She's getting there, but she doesn't trust so easily.

Lizzie thinks for a minute, trying to come up with some ideas for Lydia.

"You know what, I'm pretty sure Mom still has all of those booklets from your orientation. I don't know what kind of clubs or societies there are at your college, but if you go ask her for the booklets, you can see what there is and then I can tell you if I've heard of them and we can go from there?"

"Sounds good sis! Thanks! I think that's all I wanna talk about right now… I don't want to think more. Do you want some potato chips?"

"Um… No thanks, I'm just going to try to finish this book." Lizzie gestured to Chamber of Secrets, still lying open on the bed.

"You've read that book like, 17 times… I don't get how you can do that!"

"You get something new from it every time you re-read it… it's fun!"

"You are the biggest nerd."

"I know. I will wear that title proudly, I've told you."

Lydia laughed as she closed the door behind her and Lizzie listened to her footsteps going down the stairs. It was weird not having Jane around anymore. Lizzie missed the relaxed indie music wafting in from Jane's room and the smell of her homemade candles.

Lizzie leant back into her pillows, picked up her book again and tried to concentrate. 10 minutes later she'd pulled her laptop onto her bed and was waiting for it to start up. There was no way she could go back to reading now that she'd remembered that Gigi had a Twitter. She wasn't quite sure why she hadn't thought of this before…or why she wasn't following her already.

Since Lizzie had left Pemberley, she had checked Darcy's Twitter but there had been nothing. She didn't want to make the first contact, she didn't know if he even wanted to have anything to do with her anymore. She just wanted to hear something, anything, to put her mind at ease. Now that she remembered Gigi had Twitter, she could finally see if anything had been going on.

Lizzie clicked on the search bar and typed in 'Gigi Darcy'.


	2. Chapter 2 - Discovery

There was an account right there, as it had been all along. Lizzie scrolled down the page, mostly seeing conversations between Gigi and Fitz. She chuckled to herself – she missed those two, they were fun to be around.

Lizzie kept scrolling until she reached Gigi's tweets from late January, when suddenly the little blue logo of Pemberley Digital showed up. She was totally unaware that there'd been a big project launched just after she'd left.

"Domino…" She muttered questioningly under her breath.

Lizzie clicked the link, and it took her to the PD Youtube, where Gigi's face was staring back at her. She scrolled down to the first video and clicked play.

20 minutes later Lizzie had finished all 6 videos and was she was completely frozen in place.

It had been Darcy. However the site was taken down – Lizzie still didn't really understand how that happened – it had been him. She felt a paralysation similar to the one she'd experienced when she found out about the website and the tape. She didn't know what to do.

"LYDIA!" She yelled down the stairs. Moments later Lydia poked her head into Lizzie's room.

"What's up?" She asked.

"It was Darcy. He took down the website."

"Yeah I know."

"What?! You _knew _and you didn't tell me?"

"He told me not to tell you! He didn't want you to know it was him, he didn't want you to think you owe him something."

"You talked to him? How is it that everyone is keeping in touch yet no one seems to be telling me anything?"

"He just called me to tell me, he thought that I should know. That was when he took it down, I haven't heard from him since."

There was silence for a few moments before Lizzie got up and started grabbing random things and shoving them into a bag.

"You're going to go see him." Lydia said. It wasn't a question. There was never a question.

"What else can I do right now? I have to at least thank him!"

"See! You do feel like you owe him something!" Lydia cried, exasperated! "Exactly what he expected of you. Far out, you two need to get together! You know each other way better now."

"Lydia, he doesn't want anything to do with our family anymore, okay? I'm just going to thank him, see if I can pay him back somehow and then I will get out of his life, like he wants!"

"You are actually that blind, Lizzie Bennet." Lydia said, as she turned on her heel and went into her own bedroom. Seconds later, she stomped back into Lizzie's room and said, "Oh, and the Darcy's are both still staying in their place in San Fran… just… you know, in case you were wondering."

"Thanks." Lizzie replied, distractedly.

Lydia went back to her room once more and whipped out her cell phone. It was still weird to her to have 'William Darcy' in her phone, but she tapped his name and started writing a message.

[She knows. Not sure what she's planning on doing exactly, I don't think she knows herself, to be honest. Just thought I should tell you.]

Darcy didn't send a reply and Lydia wondered whether she had his number right, but it didn't matter. Lizzie could be her own force of nature, whatever was going to happen will happen, and there was no stopping it.

By the time Lydia had tapped 'send' on her phone, Lizzie was already out the front door, trying to hold her umbrella straight in the gale force winds and rain that was beating down relentlessly. She jumped into her car, managing to let a lot of water in at the same time. There weren't many times in her life that Lizzie had taken the long drive to San Francisco. It was going to take a while… she'd get there well past midnight, but she had to do this now, she was determined. She slipped a random CD into the slot and started driving.


	3. Chapter 3 - DeBourgh

4 hours and 7 repeats of the same CD later, Lizzie arrived in the parking lot of Pemberley Digital. She noticed Fitz had his own parking space, so she put her car into it, pushed the driver's seat back, set her phone alarm for 7am and fell asleep.

It took her several hours to actually get to sleep, her brain insisted on running through the possible scenarios for tomorrow. When her alarm finally went off, Lizzie slept right through it. At 7.45am she heard a knock on the car window. Groggily, she opened her eyes, only to see Fitz staring in at her.

"Lizzie B!" He shouted through the glass. "You are literally sleeping in your car…what's up?!"

"Crap! What's the time?" Lizzie asked.

"Nearly 8." Fitz replied, looking more confused.

"Crap, crap, crap!" She fumbled with the door and quickly ran her fingers through her hair, checking in the rear-vision mirror that she at least looked a tiny bit respectable.

She nearly slammed her fingers in the car door and almost locked herself out, but after a few minutes she'd gotten herself together and was walking away from the car, more determined than ever. Fitz was left standing there, with nowhere to park his car and a very bemused look on his face.

"You're not going to tell me what's going on at all?" He called after her.

"Nope. After!" She yelled back, not even looking behind her.

Lizzie yawned as she made her way around to the front of the building. She was going to have to go through all of the visitor's nonsense before she'd be allowed in. She wished she still had her pass so she could just swipe it and get that over and done with. She walked through the revolving door, checking she had her ID on her, and started heading towards the front desk.

"Hi! My name's –"

"Elizabeth Bennet! Just the woman I was looking for." Came a familiar voice from Lizzie's right.

Lizzie turned slowly, already dreading who she was going to see.

"Miss DeBourgh! You were looking for me? How could you know that I was here, I only arrived very early this morning with no notice at all!"

"I have my connections young lady. Now, I was wondering if I could have a word with you privately." The older woman winked at the girl behind the desk, who slipped over a visitor's pass and told her that conference room 8 was currently empty, if they would like to utilise it. Miss DeBourgh thanked her and beckoned Lizzie to follow her. Confused, Lizzie did so.

Once they were in the conference room, Lizzie had precious seconds to admire the state of the art conference calling system that was contained within before Miss DeBourgh rounded on her.

"Of course, I didn't say so down in the foyer, but it is quite clear to you, the reason why I am here."

Lizzie was becoming more and more confused by the second. "Not at all! Sorry, but I really can't understand how you would even know I was here, let alone why you would want to talk to me! I haven't had anything to do with Collins and Collins in months!"

Miss DeBourgh sighed exasperatedly and dismissed Lizzie's confusion with a wave of her hand. "I have become aware of your videos. I only watched the most recent ones, of course. A woman of my status doesn't have time to engage in watching silly videos of no consequence!"

Lizzie's heart raced a little faster. It was inevitable that almost anyone she met would soon become aware of her videos and whilst there was nothing incriminating in them, as far as she was concerned, she wasn't that keen on people she knew nothing about having all this information on her. It was hard to make first impressions now.

"What about them?" She asked calmly, determined to not let any of her embarrassment show.

"In them, you have expressed that you might have feelings for William. I know this simply cannot be true, as when you visited Collins and Collins, you showed only disdain towards him." Replied Miss DeBourgh.

"If you are so convinced that it isn't true, then why are you here? Why did you track me down just to make me confirm whether it was true or not?"

"I need to ensure that this is not true, I need you to tell me yourself! A man in his position cannot be seen to have relations with a woman so low as you are."

Lizzie couldn't even speak after that comment. She stood there stunned.

"You know that he and Caroline Lee are quite the pair and that they intend to make their relationship public this very week," stated Miss DeBourgh with an air as though she was dropping the biggest bombshell in history.

Lizzie laughed internally at that. If that was true then there was truly not a single hope left in the world. Darcy never liked Caroline more than platonically. She didn't voice her opinion out loud, however. "If that's true, then I really wonder why you would expect me to be interfering with such a relationship!"

Miss DeBourgh didn't seem to be listening to anything that Lizzie tried to say. "Has William ever made it clear to you that he would like to have relations with you?"

"You said yourself that it would be abominable for him to request that of me – for his reputation's sake!"

"So then, you would like him to do so?"

"I never said anything remotely close to that! I'm not going to talk to you about this; it's not your business, quite frankly!"

"Oh but it is! I have a right to know what William is getting himself into. Our businesses are tied and I do not want any connection he may or may not have to reflect badly on us!"

"Are you kidding me?! You've actually just offended me in almost every single way possible. You honestly cannot have anything more to say to me!" Lizzie cried incredulously.

"Oh but that is not all I have to say! You must assure me that you don't have personal relations with William Darcy and promise me that you'll never have relations with him, excepting academic relations of course."

"I can tell you that I am not close with him in the way that you are inferring, but I will never make the promise that you require of me! That is an awful thing to make anyone do!" Lizzie had a mind to stop there, but she felt she needed to make her entire point known. "You know what, since you keep making the comment about my reputation and his being incompatible, I have to say that if he loved me, then it would not matter to him that I was not quite as prestigious as him, love would be quite enough to satisfy him. Sorry Miss DeBourgh, but you're done now; you don't get to say anything else!"

"Elizabeth, you are an impossible case. I am disappointed in your behaviour towards such a woman as myself!" With that, Miss DeBourgh stormed out of the room, leaving Lizzie to stare after her, wondering what the hell just happened.

She took a few minutes to compose herself, took hold of her visitors pass and made to leave the room. Before she could, however, a familiar face appeared in the doorway.

"Lizzie."


	4. Chapter 4 - Darcy

"Darcy!" Cried Lizzie in surprise. She wasn't quite sure why she was surprised. She knew he was here and she was in a conference room at his company, after all, it'd be more of a shock if she didn't see him.

"Are you okay?" He asked. Months ago, she would have thought that his voice was too robotic and that he didn't really care, but now that she knew him better, she could hear the truth in his voice.

"Um… I don't know? Miss DeBourgh was just here, but I don't really know what just happened!"

"Yes, I heard most of the conversation." Darcy looked down as he said this.

"Oh. You did? How?"

"Our conference rooms automatically start recording whenever human presence is detected in the room," he explained, as Lizzie rolled her eyes at the state-of-the-art technology that Pemberley had, "I usually ignore the feed when I know there's a meeting on, but there weren't supposed to be any meetings today, so I was concerned. I checked the feed and I saw you."

"Right. Well." Lizzie didn't quite know where to start with all the things she had to say. "Look, I didn't come to Pemberley Digital to talk to Miss DeBourgh… I came here to see you." She met his eye as she said this, hoping that he understood what she wanted to say, before she said it.

She continued, her words spilling out of her mouth faster than she could control. "I just…um.. I didn't find out that you helped take down that awful website until last night. I don't even know how to thank you, seriously. How did you do it?"

"I bought the company." Darcy said simply.

"Of course you did," laughed Lizzie, "how am I supposed to pay you back for helping Lydia and, I guess, our entire family?"

You don't owe me anything! It's exactly why I didn't want you to know that it was me. If you must, you can just thank me, that is enough."

"Well, on behalf of my fami-"

"No. If you're going to thank me it needs to be from you alone, I honestly did not do it for anyone but you, Lizzie."

Lizzie was taken aback by this, although a little hope swelled in her that maybe they had not missed their chance and she could fix this.

She looked directly in his face and said, "Thank you, William."

There was silence for a few moments; whilst Lizzie was frantically thinking of what to say next - none of this had gone according to any of her plans she'd made in the car – Darcy was silently freaking out that she'd used his first name to his face for the first time. Eventually, it was Darcy who spoke first.

"Lizzie, I don't want to draw this out any longer… If you feel the same way about me as you did at Collins and Collins, then please, tell me. My feelings haven't changed but if you're still not at all interested then I won't ever bring it up again."

"No… no I think my feelings are quite the opposite now." Lizzie said awkwardly, looking down at her shoes. If she _had_ looked up, she might have seen a giant smile spreading across Darcy's face.

After her statement, silence rung around the conference room. Both of them were looking at their feet still, suddenly their footwear was much more interesting than anything else in the room. Once again, Darcy was the one who spoke next.

"You know, nothing you said to me or about me in any of your videos was undeserved. Now that I've seen it from your point of view, everything that I ever did or said sounds awful. You misunderstood me, but that can't be helped, and my behaviour, as seen by you, completely warranted those reactions. I think about it a lot and I shudder at how horrible I must have seemed."

"Well it's not like I was exactly civil either! We shouldn't really keep thinking about what happened in the past – I think both of us have improved immensely since then and I think that is what matters the most."

"Did my letter to you, did it help to change your mind about me?"

"Um, apart from the fact that it was wax sealed?" Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah it did. It took a while, I think, but I'm so grateful for it. It was unfair of me to not even consider your perspective, so when you quite literally handed it to me, I think it really did help. I'm glad you wrote it."

"I did notice you stopped doing costume theatre of me, after that letter. I had hoped that it meant that you'd changed your mind a little – even if only to not think completely ill of me. Overhearing the conversation with my aunt just now, that gave me the most hope of all."

"What, not even our time together at Pemberely? Didn't that give you a hint at all?!" Lizzie was surprised that her behaviour towards him wasn't blatantly obvious.

"I hoped a little, but I was not trying to gain your affection then – simply your friendship. I just wanted you to not hate me."

Lizzie laughed. It seemed that even though they had learnt to understand each other a little better, they still hadn't a clue of what the other was thinking. Suddenly, Lizzie's stomach grumbled loudly.

"Have you not eaten?" Darcy asked, looking alarmed.

"No," Lizzie confessed. "I didn't get to have dinner last night – I started driving here at 8."

"You drove?! Would you like to get some breakfast at the buffet downstairs?"

"Yes! I'd love that." Lizzie smiled.

They made their way down to the buffet, which was something Lizzie definitely missed about Pemberley. She piled her plate high with almost everything on offer, whilst Darcy got coffee and toast. They sat down to eat together and by the time Lizzie had gotten to her third piece of bacon, they were catching up on everything that had been so ridiculously elusive over the last year or so.

They talked more about Darcy's letter, about Gigi, Lydia, George, Bing and Jane and the antics of Ricky Collins. They sat there for hours, not even realising that time had been slipping past them.

Lizzie glanced down at her watch at one point and was surprised to see how long it had been.

"Oh my gosh, it's nearly lunchtime!" She exclaimed.

A familiar voice started up from the table behind them.

"Yeah, and some of us have to work!"

"Also some of us will get a parking ticket in about 15 minutes if they don't get their parking spots back, Lizzie B."

She turned around to see Fitz and Gigi sitting there grinning at them.

"Crap, I'm so sorry Fitz! I'll go move it now if you'd like? I should probably head home anyway, I didn't really tell Mom and Dad where I was going….or that I was going anywhere at all."

She turned to Darcy to apologise for having to leave, but he was already standing up, ready to go.

"I'll come with you."

It wasn't even a question. Lizzie's heart swelled. She made a mental observation that less than a year ago, she would have taken the option of flinging herself off of a cliff rather than spend a 4 hour car ride with William Darcy. Now, however, she was filled with happiness at the thought.

"Alright," She smiled, "let's go!"

_(Sorry that this took so freaking long! I can't decide if this is the end or not. I have plans, but I'm very busy, so I don't know if I'll finish it. Follow the story if you want to read anything that I do happen to churn out! Oh, and please review it! This is my first fan fiction that I've ever properly written, so I'd love your feedback!)_


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